How do you teach the complexities of the American election system while keeping it interesting and engaging for high school students?
That was a question for Advanced Placement Government teacher Grant Graves who
, over the last two school years, developed a unique curriculum for students learning about this important process.
“We teach the students how elections work in the United States,” Graves said. “We talk about why certain candidates have certain policies based on their ideologies to get people to vote for them. We talk about single-issue voters and how parties have evolved over time.”
However, instead of a traditional lesson, Graves instead allows his students to lead the lesson and discussion by electing their own AP Government classroom president.
“Together, we came up with an idea of how it should look. And they really took it and ran with it from having Instagram pages and our website that we kept up day-by-day in class. It was my way of making it a bit more interesting for 16 and 17-year-olds,” Graves said.
Students in the class act as the interest groups, political parties, media and campaign teams. The class features a website with media coverage of events on the campaign trail. Candidates have their own social media accounts, highlighting their platform and image to voters.
“The media was covering and asking questions to see where they [candidates] actually stood on policy,” Graves explained. “The interest groups are trying to get them to adopt their policy as it relates to where funding would go or would or wouldn’t they pass law based on where the interest group was. The political parties ensure that any nominated candidate carries out the party's principles.”
For about three months, candidates battle it out on the campaign trail. Potential scandals arise for candidates. Commercials, posters, and speeches highlight policy, beliefs and image. All the campaign materials and content are created by the students.
“We were going really strong at the beginning of the project,” Xavier DiGennaro, a campaign manager from last year’s AP government class said. “We did polls after the stump speeches and we got like 90 percent of the votes. Right after the commercial, the media picked up on a scandal and it kind of set us back.”
“My commercial was about educating my audience on what I was about,” Hailey Moltz, a candidate from last year’s class said. “During the campaign, it kind of came into question what I stood for. So I had to explain what I was there for and stood for. I wrote the script for my video and my campaign manager edited it all and set up the interviews.”
“It shows how much really goes into a campaign and how much every little thing matters,” Grace Munro, a senior “candidate” in last year’s AP Government class expressed. “It shows how much your image matters and how one little thing can change the vote.”
“I knew this project was super engaging when we had a snow day,” Graves added with a laugh. “I’m at home and I get an email about some ads running around on Instagram about the debate. So I open it up, and it’s clips of the debate with things that aren’t the most factually accurate. So I knew I had kind of created this monster. The candidate that had the most time on their hands was going to try and plunge this election. It was nuts.”
Regardless of the election outcome, the AP Government class made a lasting impression for students.
“It was really fun,” DiGennaro said. “It was really one of my favorite projects because it was so engaging.”
“Especially in a class like government,” Moltz added. “It can get really boring really quickly.”
“It was my favorite class in high school,” Munro said.